Sweet Thing
by aviry nolane
Summary: Yeah, Sarah is back from the Underground. So what? She's a big girl, with big problems. Welcome to the new genre of Labfiction, Evil Sarah. She's tired of being at the beck and call of Jareth, and falling helplessly in love with his devilish charms. Sweet
1. What Dreams Are Made Of

Subj:**New Fic: Sweet Thing - Chapter 1 **  
Date:2/2/03 4:22:44 AM Eastern Standard Time  
From:SlvrLuna47  
To:labfic@yahoogroups.com  
To:Jareth_Sarah_Forever@yahoogroups.com  
To:Marysia@marysia.com  
  
Finally posting...   
  
Title: Sweet Thing   
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com  
Rating: Rather PG   
Summary: Recipe For One Sweet Thing: One part feisty main character, riddled with emotional holes, add one part authoress tired of emotional crapwittage fluff, mix well, adding chunks of bad humor and hollywood glam. Mix. Destroy.   
Keywords: One Evil Sarah  
  
Notes: Hope you like! I have 2 other parts written... which i will distribute to JSF group members to be edited if they voice their wish to be editors... Otherwise, I'll just suck. lol. I'm ok with that.   
  
Enjoy!   
  
* avi   
  
  
Sweet Thing   
  
Chapter 1: What Dreams Are Made Of.   
  
  
The young girl crossed to midstage where she awaited the director's instruction.   
  
She stood in the light, making sure she had placed her tiny silhouette completely in the center. Everything had to be perfect, everything had to go well.   
  
The casting directors were busy, so she spent this extra time making sure everything was in place, in case somehow her nose had accidentally strayed to the wrong side of her face since she had checked herself only moments ago in the compact now pressing against her leg from her pocket.  
  
She fiddled idly with her hands, her gaze nervously falling over one director to the other as they bickered about the last actress.   
  
"We can't pass up this opportunity," the director on the far left was saying.   
  
"You have to take into consideration what it means to turn away the Jackson girl, why her cousin practically runs the East end."   
  
The middle director sat for a moment, to the young girl it was quite plain that this woman was readily nearing the boiling point.   
  
She shifted uncomfortably, glad that the director's gaze had not been focused on her.   
  
"You're both completely incompetent." She spat, "I have no idea what possessed John to hire such totally witless associates." She turned to the director on her right with a steely glare. "You are possibly the most inept human being to ever disgrace my presence. The "opportunity" you're so keen on pouncing on is known as 'selling out,' to commoner folk." Her razor sharp glare swooped now to the judge at her left. "And you! Just what the HELL are you doing here? Did some cousin get _ you _ this job? Because it sure as hell wasn't your talent as an advisor. If anyone lacks more talent in their chosen field than you, it's Victoria Jackson herself. It seems you and Vicky have something in common after all."   
  
She grinned icily, completely satisfied with herself. The other two directors were busy collecting the remains of their self respect and calming their blushing cheeks, and so when the head director turned to the young brunette she had never felt any more helplessly alone.   
  
The director cleared her throat. "And who are you?" She dripped sweetly.   
  
"S-Sarah." She stuttered, suddenly ashamed. If only she had been born something exotic, something immediately likeable, something magnetic like Shauna or Devee or Mistletoe.  
  
To her astonishment, the icy director's face drew into a smile.   
  
"My name is Sarah, too." She explained. "You don't get many Sarah's in the business these days, it's all about the showmanship now, all these Savannahs and Rajas and Skylars." She paused, reminiscing for a moment, then continued. "Tell me about yourself, Sarah, why are you here?"   
  
Sarah grinned, and flew into her speech. "I want to create, I want to express what other people can't... I want to send a message to the world with my acting, I'd love to be a role model for younger children." She paused briefly, "to inspire in other people what my mother has inspired in me."   
  
"You're mother is an actress?"   
  
"Yes, well, no... She was an actress, before my father died that is."   
  
To her surprise the director began to clap her hands at this.   
  
"Perfect," she burst, "simply perfect. I've only known you three seconds and I'm already bored.  
  
Sarah couldn't stop herself, "excuse me?" she stammered.   
  
"Oh of course," dripped the sneering director from below the stage. "Do you realize that you have just spouted off the most inane, stereotypical, hollywood wannabe type dribble that I hear every day, all day?"  
  
Sarah's eyes grew wide in complete shock.   
  
"Every young woman that comes through that door," She pointed, emphasizing, "has a sob story to tell. Every one of them. And yours is remarkably similar to theirs, as are your aspirations. You are nothing special, Sarah. You remind me of when I was young and stupid. Do yourself a favor and go back home and return when you have something better to tell me."   
  
Sarah couldn't move, couldn't blink, couldn't think.   
  
"I said, Go." She waved her hands towards the exit.   
  
"Don't I... Don't I even get to do my piece?"  
  
The director laughed, the other two directors hardly looking up at Sarah now, their gazes intently fixed on their blank steno pads. Making it clear that these auditions were a one woman show.   
  
"With the way you delivered that line about your father, I wouldn't trust you flipping burgers in a Wendy's commercial. You just don't have depth. You don't have heart. And you certainly don't have ability." The director paused, calculating. "Go home, Sarah. And grow up."   
  
The young brunettes eyes filled with tears, all the fight gone from her.   
  
As she fled the stage, practically jogging to the door, the young woman behind the desk turned to her two co-directors.   
  
"Let's call it a day, shall we? I've had as much creative genius as I can stand for one day."   
  
With that said, Sarah Williams grabbed her red Gucci bag and was out the door before either associate had the time to stop her.   
  
Not that they would have said a word to encourage her to stay.   
  
Sarah was just a plain -- well, not very well liked anyway.  
  
There's certainly no need for profanity in the first chapter. After all --   
  
Suddenly there was a murmer from the left seated casting director as she rose to grab her bag, "Bitch."   
  
- - - - - - -   
  
*avi 


	2. We All Have Our Bad Days

  
Title: Sweet Thing   
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com  
Rating: Rather PG   
Summary: Yeah, Sarah is back from the Underground. So what? She's a big girl, with big problems. Welcome to the new genre of Labfiction, Evil Sarah. She's tired of being at the beck and call of Jareth, and falling helplessly in love with his devilish charms. Sweet Thing, Sarah Williams puts up a fight. Will she still end up with Jareth? Who knows.   
  
She hasn't decided yet.   
  
So back off.   
  
Keywords: One Evil Sarah  
  
Notes: Chapter 2, for your viewing pleasure. It's not edited, or checked, or ANYTHING, so if it sucks, let me know. Also, any suggestions for the plot as a whole are appriciated. Thanks to Redaura for getting me motivated on this one, love me now, love me?! lol.   
  
  
Sweet Thing  
  
Chapter 2 - We All Have Our Bad Days   
  
  
Sarah's mood must have lasted, because the loud pang of her keys against the kitchen counter was sufficient enough to bring Scotty, her usually elusive black cat, out of hiding and into the adjoined living room, a puzzled expression playing on his face.   
  
His whiskers twitched as Sarah slammed a few cabinet doors shut, obviously failing in her mission to locate dinner, and Scotty simply forgot to be interested, wandering away back into the folds of the sofa.   
  
"Is there nothing in this house?" Sarah scoffed. Beaten, she reached into a box of NutraGrain that lay idle near the dark marble of the sink. Grabbing a bar she made her way into the living room of her spacious apartment, pausing only to kick off her ridiculously uncomfortable black heels and to remove her leather jacket.   
  
She reclined onto a nearby stuffed chair and closed her eyes with a sigh.  
  
She didn't want to see any of it right now. She didn't want to see the décor that populated her apartment, the dark hues of black and blue that entrapped the leather furniture in a somber mist, or the sharp red frames that held pictures of local theatres and playbills, instead of friends and relatives. She didn't want to see the icy looking chrome wall hangings, lamps, and tables that usually were such a source of pride for her. She had more money in those few sculptures than many people had invested in their own homes.   
  
The fact that she had chosen it all herself made it seem all the more invasive.   
  
She grimaced, she was tired. It had been a long day, even longer than she had let on. It had started out as a day of bad omens. She had woken late, to find that the building was under a strict boil alert, making showering nearly impossible. Then she had stepped on Scotty while she was dressing and received a right leg thick with scratches, and finally on her way out the door, she had managed to spill an entire pot of life giving coffee all over her kitchen floor and herself.   
  
It was then that she had made it to the parking garage, just in time to see security pull away from her car, a bright yellow slip of paper proclaiming her next unlucky turn.   
  
From there, the day had gotten progressively worse.   
  
The rest of her casting crew had been incompetent East end rejects, set on casting the opening show as a variable who-do-you-know showcase of talentless relatives. She wasn't about to let John's show be reviewed as a "can I do you a favor?" show, this was important to her, and she had worked very hard to get where she was.   
  
Yes, she reminded herself mentally, that she had.  
  
The tiny brunette Sarah that had wandered, bleary-eyed, onto her stage had just been too much to handle. Sarah was all too well reminded of herself when she had first come to New York at seventeen. Her mother had scored her a modeling contract with a semi-prestigious agency, and she had come naïve, innocent, and unprepared into what she expected to be the greatest turn of her life.   
  
She shook her head at this thought, young, longhaired, misty eyed, Sarah Williams making her way into the large double doors of Gilbert Clientele.   
  
She had been so very young, and so very stupid.   
  
The young Sarah on the stage today had been the personification of her youthful self. She desperately hoped that she had instilled enough shame and fear into that poor girl that she'd run home to her mother and never return to the city again.   
  
People got hurt in the city.   
  
Barely moving, she reached down to her bag and pulled the girl's crisp application out of her bag.   
  
"Sarah Jean Deacon," she read aloud. An eyebrow raised slowly as she read the next line, "New Anchor, Massachusetts?" She herself remembered spending a few summers at the town of New Anchor. An aunt had lived there in an old house she barely recollected. She frowned, somehow sharing the town of New Anchor with this young girl made her remarks seem even more personal. She shook her head. She was only looking out for the girl's best interest, after all. A bright, sweet girl like that had no business in this profession. Acting wasn't for the trusting, she had learned that firsthand.   
  
She no longer regretted the person she had become after these last years. It had been a rough road, but she had come through stronger. There was no one who could take advantage of her now, there was not one person who could get inside the walls she had built, no one who could hurt her.  
  
That had ended.   
  
She had learned these last few years that people who offered you your dreams always wanted something more costly in return.   
  
That lesson itself reminded her of another fell point of the day.   
  
Her anniversary. Her ninth to be exact, of the night she had learned that to trust was to fail and to love was to deceive.   
  
The night of the Goblin King.   
  
As if on cue, the lights flickered at this thought.   
  
She started a moment, her brown hair falling in waves around her chin and shoulders. The flicker passed, the lights kicking back on around her, and she stood from her seat, grabbing her bag from beside her, and made her way into her bedroom,   
  
Laughing.   



	3. Slime and Snails and Puppydog Tails

  
Title: Sweet Thing   
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com  
Rating: Rather PG   
Summary: Recipe For One Sweet Thing: One part feisty main character, riddled with emotional holes, add one part authoress tired of emotional crapwittage fluff, mix well, adding chunks of bad humor and hollywood glam. Mix. Destroy.   
Keywords: One Evil Sarah  
  
Notes: Thousands upon thousands of thanks to Redaura  
  
Thanks awfully to: Rumm, Sway, and Solea.   
  
  
Sweet Thing   
  
Chapter 3 - Slime and Snails and Puppydog Tails  
  
  
The halls were thick with rancid sounds.   
  
They ranged from the obtuse shrieks of the peasants outside to the positively disgusting keening of the deformed mongrel soldiers that populated the marble room. Together they raised in a fearsome crescendo that would have sent most full grown males running to their mothers.   
  
The monstrous groans cried out together, their combined rancor exemplifing the death and decay of their surroundings.   
  
For the wails alone were disturbing, but if there was anything that added to the mood of complete catastrophe, it was the stench.   
  
The combined garbage and waste of the shrieking animals was scattered in sparse piles throughout the chamber, most of the mess being concentrated at the outer ridge of the room where the rain could wash the refuse from the ledge and down the side of the outcropping.   
  
Not that this occurred very often.   
  
The small brown and green figures crept in sloth-like trails around the room, all semblance of joy and triviality gone from their existences.   
  
They lived for one thing now, survival.   
  
One could scarcely believe that at one time they could have been the personification of life, of innocence, of creation. In a single moment they had been transformed into witless idiots, thoughtless seekers of pleasure and excitement, caring nothing for growth or preservation. Their existences had been bleak, perhaps. But it was only now that they had grown completely useless and demented.   
  
They had shrunken, shriveled into tiny coarse bits of rumpled flesh and peeling skin. The clothes on their backs had been ravaged, leaving them with the look of deformed vagrant wanderers. Despite it all, the looks in their eyes were still the worst of it.   
  
The beady yellow eyes of the monsters shone with hunger. The hunger for food and drink may well have been alleviated, but still they eyes hungered for more. They had the look about them of being thirsty for bloodlust, a deep craving for revenge and masochism bridled within their sniveling forms.   
  
They slunk along, brooding in the lighter parts of the dungeon-like hell.   
  
Amidst the rank mess of the polluted chamber there grew one great shadow from it all. It encompassed the whole of the center, the stretches of its languid fingers seemingly omnipotent in the chaotic room.  
  
For all the hunger and pain dwelling within the eyes of the creatures, not a single one  
would venture into that darkness.   
  
They crept on, oblivious to its dwelling presence in their midst.   
  
Through the deep folds of the shadow, over the pathways of shattered crystal and  
crumbled rock, the dusty outcropping of stone permeated the shadow.   
  
For in the shattered outcropping sat one lone figure, unmoving in the shadows.   
  
The dust rose up in frozen spikes around him, the dazzling ice like projections frozen in a  
cloudy circular mist that framed the fragile bauble it held within.   
  
For in the seat, beyond the raingear shifts, the solitary silhouette remained.   
  
The gossamer strands of his hair had long since been tainted by the disarray of the  
surroundings, faded to a musty gray clump that fell in disheveled heaps around his face.   
  
And the face.  
  
It was frozen, unmoving, fastened in time by the breaking of will and sovereignty.   
  
The eyes had sunken in, the glow lost to the brassy overtones of dirt and soil. The bones of the face had started to become prominent, the hollows of the figure receding into the charred depths of the ivory structure. His mouth was open in a half gasp, the misty ring of dust emanating from it depicting a stilled death.  
  
The expression was one of frozen horror, of betrayal, of loss, and of confusion.   
  
Slowly, a brief movement began to come from it, a small stirring of the mouth.   
  
The shadows drew back, the folding of shadow to light producing a curtain of darkness. In the small opening of other worldly light, the small object began to pull itself from its prison.   
  
A small gold spider crawled deftly from its home inside the cracking skull of the once  
beautiful reagent.   
  
And beyond the shadow, the beasts roared on in misery.   
  
Their king was dead.   
  
- - - - - - -   
  
* avi 


	4. Splish Splash

  
Title: Sweet Thing   
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com  
Rating: Rather PG   
Summary: Recipe For One Sweet Thing: One part feisty main character, riddled with emotional holes, add one part authoress tired of emotional crapwittage fluff, mix well, adding chunks of bad humor and hollywood glam. Mix. Destroy.   
Keywords: One Evil Sarah  
  
Notes: Ok, I know. she doesn't seem so evil in this chapter. IM GETTING THERE, OK?! lol. just wait, she's tired in this chapter and a little shaken.   
  
Again, many cookies to redaura who has been helping me with the plot.   
  
Enjoy!   
  
** Chapter 4 - Splish Splash **   
  
  
Sarah sat up in bed, alert.   
  
Pulling the thick mat of her hair forward from her sweat soaked back, she rolled her head in a half circle and closed her eyes.   
  
The dream.  
  
"Damn it," she whispered to herself. "Never a break."  
  
She had known it was coming. It had come every night for the last nine years without fail.   
  
Over the last few years in particular it had gotten progressively worse, as if it was building up to some immaculate conception. The dream had never remained the same, instead preferring to slowly build, the scene growing increasingly more detailed, each time the horror extending further into the depths of the night.   
  
She shuddered involuntarily at the newest turn her night terror had taken. She had never seen the peculiar glint in the eyes of the ravenous goblins.   
  
What's more, she had never seen what was shrouded in the shadows before. She had never dared to think, dared to dream that…   
  
The king was dead.   
  
She rose, unable to absorb this new bit of information sitting down.   
  
Shaking her head, she made her way into the adjoining bathroom.   
  
"It was just a dream, Sarah." She quipped angrily at herself. "Just a stupid, stupid dream."  
  
She glared at herself in the mirror, detesting the anguished look deep in her eyes, the disheveled mess of her hair, the sunken pallor of her cheeks.   
  
"It's over." She snapped, "over. You are a twenty-four year old grown adult with a successful career and a life that most people can only dream of." Her voice was haughty, purposeful.   
  
Her reflection did not look convinced.   
  
She tried again. "Stop with the games. You're a big girl now, Sarah. Stop living in fear of a fantasy." She paused, the tone in her voice taking on a self-mocking quality.   
  
"Sarah," she chided, "There is no such thing as the Goblin King."  
  
She nodded back at herself. This seemed to have done the trick.   
  
Leaning over, she turned on the tap and splashed her face with overflowing handfuls of ice cold water, trying to drown away any lasting images of the skeletal form of the king of the goblins.   
  
She had accomplished her goal of drowning away thoughts of the Underground in a record-breaking time of only a few moments.  
  
Usually she was mildly incapacitated and overly irritable for over a week before she finally convinced herself that the reoccurring trauma was just the result of some psychological regression problems, prone to take form near the time of her supposed "abduction".  
  
At least that's what Sarah's therapist had said. Her first therapist.   
  
But Sarah was done with therapy now. She had tried psychoanalysis, she had tried behavior modification, and she had tried yoga, karmic balance theorems, and acupuncture.   
  
Finally, she just became resolute in the fact that she was crazy, and needed to move on.   
  
Which she accomplished remarkably well.   
  
Not that it at all mattered.   
  
Reaching out with a searching hand, she grasped at the wall blindly, seeking out the towel that hung there.   
  
That usually hung there.   
  
Sarah grunted angrily and spun around, blindly in search of the laundry basket.   
  
And walked straight into her towel.   
  
Her heart stopped and her eyes flew open, hands reaching out to grasp the towel before her. The towel which she sincerely hoped had just been strung from the ceiling above the tile floor by a loose thread, and was in no way, shape, or form attached to a being, magical or otherwise inside her home.   
  
Even she realized how unrealistic that sounded.   
  
She winced as the soap stung her eyes and jumped away from the dark silhouette that she could make out blocking her exit.   
  
"Go away!" she shouted, wiping at her eyes with her left hand to no avail, and frantically searching for an implement of torture with her right.   
  
Her only reply was a throaty chuckle.   
  
Things weren't looking good.   
  
Finally, her hand made contact with something that felt dangerous.   
  
She held it out before her with both hands, hoping her squinting eyes made her look more dangerous than vulnerable.  
  
Moreover, that her fiercely pounding heart, which she was sure her assailant could hear, more threatening than afraid.  
  
Which she was, terribly.   
  
"Get out of my house!" she shouted again, voice giving away no sign of weakness.   
  
A moment passed. She shifted.   
  
"Really, Sarah," spoke a deep voice that was rapidly closing in on her, "This is the second time you've invited me, and the second time I have been shocked by your foul manners."  
  
A hand brushed the side of her face and Sarah lashed out with her impromtu weaponry... which she now realized to be her toothbrush.   
  
He was too fast. With a swift brushing of the air around her Sarah was disarmed and twisted into her assailants grip by her wrists.   
  
Through her bloodshot and squinting eyes she could make out only one detail.   
  
The eyes.   
  
And the eyes, she remembered.   
  
"Aren't you even going to ask me to sit down?"   
  
Her mouth fell open in a mixture of outrage and shock.   
  
"You're not real!"  
  
A towel flew into her face at this statement, and her arms were released.   
  
"Oh, Sarah," dripped the milky voice, "I'm ever so tired of that line. I'm sure that next you'll be telling me something along the lines of how dreadfully unfair everything is."  
  
She cleared her eyes as quickly as possible and was greeted by the darkly dressed form of the undead Goblin King perched on her bathroom counter.   
  
He raised an eyebrow, "let's try something new, shall we?"   
  
  
- - - - - -   
( avi )   



End file.
